2012
My pysanka writing season in 2012 was longer than some in the past, and included more exploration of my favorite new color, UGS Dark Red. Most of the designs I selected this year were traditional ones, taken mostly from Manko’s and Elyjiw’s books, with a bit of Binyashevsky thrown in.
I found myself attracted to the pysanky of Kurshchyna, particularly those from the selo (village) of Kozats’ka Sloboda (Козацька Слобода). While the designs themselves are fairly intricate, the color scheme is not: white, yellow, red and black. These designs were first recorded by Kulzhynsky and published in 1899; they have been written by pysankary since, and can be found in just about any book of folk pysanky. Elyjiw and Manko both have numerous examples. You can see four of these pysanky in the photo above; one of them I made in large quantity, as gifts for the young men (various varieties of nephews) in my life.
For the young women in my life, I wrote simple pysanka with a complex cross and bits of blue and purple. I found the design in Manko’s book, and tweaked it a bit. It is heavy on solar symbolism, and quite lovely.
Several of the traditional eggs I wrote are quite modern looking. While I sometimes change up parts of the design when I write pysanky for gifts (rather than for my own archives), the Hutsul pysanka from Binyashevsky was transcribed fairly accurately. It really is a pretty wild design, with its bands or orange, and red and green highlights. Two other quite modern looking eggs include a Bukovynian design with willow branches; I added a bit more green than the original called for, but otherwise the design is fairly accurate, at least based on what I could make out of the photo in Elyjiw’s book. Another Bukovynian design, this one from the collection of Ferenchuk, features crosses made of stars/ruzhi and lots of orange as well.
There were two other traditional designs of note. The first is a barylka design with a series of moon symbols in the main band. A circle with a cross in it is the traditional symbol for the moon, and this pysanka has many of them. The other is a design from Sokal written by Taras Horodetsky--the red flowers are big and abstracted (as all flowers tend to be on pysanky. I couldn’t see the egg in its entirety in the book, of I improvised a band of leaves dividing the two big flowers.
There were several pysanka designs that I really liked, but didn’t write more than one or two of. I was having problems with wax adhesion; bits of netting and, more commonly, drops, would just fall off while dyeing. I later decided that my workspace was probably much too cold, and added a space heater to my armamentarium. I may try these again some other year, as they are beautiful.
I also wrote a few modern, diasporan pysanky. The first was one with a complex longitudinal band that I found in Elyjiw. I really like the band, but the star motif less so; I tried different versions of it on several pysanky until I got one I liked. Another modern design is one that I wrote for myself many years ago, a simple red, white and black egg with a vazon (flowerpot ) motif. I couldn’t remember where I’d found it, and assumed it must have been form the UGS books. it wasn’t. I searched and searched, only to find it was a pysanka I had downloaded many years ago, the work (and original design) of Iryna Vakh. I changed around with the color a bit, and anchored the elements a bit more firmly, but the design is definitely hers.
Lastly, I did create a design of my own. It is the brown egg pysanka, with a complex pattern of ruzhi and stars. As with all my brown eggs, it is more a doodle than a well thought out design; I played around with it until I got something I like. Of course, I find geometrical forms fascinating, and have since I was a little girl playing with a pencil and compass. This design is an extrapolation of that.
